Good cocktails? We’ve had a few. But what really make a standout bar shine? The people doing the shaking, stirring, and entertaining. Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Clyde Common, Portland, OR He was one of the first to start tinkering with homemade syrups, bitters, and other ingredients that now elevate bar programs across the country. That bottled Negroni | Read More

There’s no shame in a fruity cocktail, says Portland barman Jeffrey Morgenthaler (he loves them) “When I first started seeing this girl recently, I confused the shit out of her. At dinner one night, I ordered rosé. When we went out for drinks, I got a strawberry daiquiri.” “I can’t believe this,” she said. “Other | Read More

A lot of work goes into building a proper cocktail – from juicing, garnishing, carbonating, stirring, and shaking to choosing to correct ice for proper chilling and dilution of a drink. Jeffrey Morgenthaler recognizes the importance of technique behind the bar. He is currently bar manager at Portland’s beloved Clyde Common. His latest, The Bar Book: Elements of | Read More

Pépé Le Moko, Portland, OR Descend into this subterranean speakeasy and you’ll feel like you’ve entered a glamorous railway dining car (minus the windows). By now famous for his classic cocktails and Barrel-aged Negronis at Clyde Common in the Ace Hotel around the corner, Jeffrey Morgenthaler pays homage to the ’80s with drinks you probably haven’t seen on a | Read More

The legendary Clyde Common bartender reveals his slow rise to cocktail stardom (by way of dive bars and white collar ambitions). With his barrel-aged negronis, bottled café cocktails, and a chatty blog, Portland’s best-known bartender has made his mark on the global cocktail scene—training bartenders from Paris to Helsinki and landing a 2014 James Beard | Read More

Bottled cocktails may seem a recent novelty, but bartenders have been throwing spirits in a bottle since Jerry Thomas’s day. Kenzi Wilbur breaks down the DIY art of the to-go cocktail. … This is precisely why respected bars like Clyde Common have brought the bottled cocktail back. “We have certain lines of defense to get | Read More

Walking into a bar and ordering a bottled cocktail can feel incongruous to the natural order of things. It doesn’t let you lean seductively over the bar and say scotch, neat. And it doesn’t allow for watching a cast of bartenders perform something like well-rehearsed play—there’s no shaking, no stirring, no straining. You go to a bar | Read More

Just because it’s cold doesn’t mean every cocktail from now until April has to be mulled or toddied. Booze is inherently bone warming, and one can only drink so many possets before sugar ossification creeps in. Behold, five drinks that make us want to slip into some long underwear. What does that mean? It means Perfect Manhattans—drier and | Read More

The top cocktail lounges, retooled salons, and neo-speakeasies that are raising the bar on how we drink. In this era of hand-carved ice, house-made bitters, and $50 shots of microbatch bourbon, it’s hard to get anything approaching a bad drink. We’re thrilled about that, but the downside of the cocktail revolution is too many cookie-cutter | Read More

The top 14 cocktail-making secrets bartenders don’t want you to know. But we got the best ones to spill. While the state of the American cocktail is better than ever, you’d think yo need an advanced degree in mixology to decipher the drinks menus at some of the more pretentious lounges. You know, places where | Read More

Barrel-Aged Cocktail Kit: Aging cocktails like the Boulevardier mellows them to a deep deliciousness. This kit from New York’s Tuthilltown Spirits features a charred-oak honeycomb stave for wood-aged flavor. $12.50; tuthilltown.com “We age drinks that have a wine component, such as vermouth or Sherry, because the wine will oxidize a little bit. That brings out a lot of nutty, | Read More

What to eat, drink, and cook in 2013. #14: What Your Bartender is Drinking “It’s weird, it’s black and bitter, it’s minty and strange, and, quite frankly, it tastes like burning,” says Jeffrey Morgenthaler, bar manager at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon. The Italian digestivo Fernet-Branca is the after-work shot of choice among those who | Read More

Just a couple blocks away from Teardrop Lounge in Portland, Clyde Common is tucked into the Ace Hotel, home to flannel and beard sporting locavores who look like they’ve just come back from cutting their own Christmas tree year-round. Head barman and avid cocktail blogger Jeffrey Morgenthaler soothes the Portlandia set with his eminently balanced, seasonally inspired concoctions; his surprise ace in | Read More

Aging cocktails in wood barrels can soften harsh edges and add layers of flavor. Plus, the results make a remarkable holiday gift. Here’s why to get started right now. I usually keep files on the shelf behind my desk. But recently I made room for a few cute little wooden casks filled with cocktails. It | Read More

A guide to stirring, experimenting with and drinking up the leanest, meanest and jazziest of classic cocktails. Scottish Breakfast: The saltiness of the Scotch cuts perfectly through the perfume-y, dessert-sweet Sherry. A cask-strength Speyside Scotch like Glenfarclas 105 works best… From Jeffrey Morgenthaler of Clyde Common, Portland, Ore.